Morrowind Mods

December 21st, 2010, 12:33

So now that the holidays are in place I have a lot of free time on my hands and what better way for a gamer to use that time than playing Morrowind ?

So before I start my epic journey with my epic thief, I want to know what are the "must have" mods when starting a fresh game. I played this game several times and the only mod I only used is "A good place to stay". I am not interested in mods that enhance visuals (maybe just body/face replaces) because I like the world and atmosphere of the game.

I agree about the visuals, but I used to have a texture pack that didn't radically change anything, just made everything in the original game sharper and better looking. It put pond weed in the swamp area and made all the foliage, walls, floor etc. look much, much better. I'd say definitely look into that kind of thing.

As for faces, many of the mods I saw for that were horrible, creating stupid looking plastic Japanese doll style characters that looked completely out of place.

Better Bodies is a good mod.

Most of the popular add-on stuff I've seen is competently executed, but absolutely horrible at the same time, completely breaking the style and character of the game.

search these forums, there's quite a few really good threads on the subject. Check my posts for the most minimalist approach to it - just improvement to models and graphics, and killing the sheen on magic items basically. Topic's been beaten to death.

Wakimīs Game Improvements - Modular - rebalances almost everything in a sensible manner, note that if you install the Factions component, advancement in guilds will be more difficult (thatīs imo a very good thing as it enforces specialization)

Linoraīs Leveling Mod - there are other, more complex mods addressing leveling, but personally Iīve found this sufficient and itīs hassle-free, itīs only effect is you donīt have to hunt for attribute multipliers anymore

Graphic Herbalism - lets you pick plants by activating them instead of opening them like containers

LGNPC (Less Generic NPCs) - as its name says, makes dialogue of a lot of NPCs less generic, plus it adds some quests, should make playing for House Redoran more interesting, mostly fits with the game well

Starfire NPC Additions - adds NPCs in settlements and wilderness, by far the best mod of this kind, lightweight, lore friendly and bug-free, makes places feel much more lively

Haunted Tombs - a little mod that very effectively enhances atmosphere in tombs

Creatures X - most "comprehensive" enemy additions, adds passive and aggressive wildlife, more daedra/dremora variety, high level enemies, etc, mostly lore friendly, its only flaw is that it adds some vermin into cities, screenshots are here, get a fix for one small, but annoying bug from here (CreaturesX-jms_patch-0.2)

A Flock of Seagulls - adds a bit more life to skies in coastal regions, unlike other similar mods this doesnīt venture out of purist territory imo

All of the above together should keep the original gameīs feel well intact, just enhance it in various ways and make the playthrough feel sufficiently different.

If youīd play a Telvanni character, Iīd also recommend Rise of House Telvanni which continues Houseīs storyline once you get to the top, and Uvirithīs Legacy which greatly expands everything around Telvanni stronghold. Both are well done.

This should be easy to setup, but read the install notes carefully.
Just to make sure your install order is ok, use Mlox.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm guessing 'Wakim's Game Improvements' probably does something to adjust it.

Not really, actually. At least not directly.
The reason I havenīt mentioned any mod directly affecting economy is that I donīt know which Iīd recommend since Iīm not aware of any which is hassle-free, doesnīt make the game way too harsh or isnīt bundled with other changes I donīt like .

I don't know whether the download links still work, though. I had problems the last time I tried to download them, but Sorcha was so kind to put them into an uploading service.

She did a few more Mods, too.

—  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Pegas horse ranch. Breed and buy your own horses that have their own characteristics (stats like speed and stamina). Changes the whole game when you can gallop through those long mountain passes instead of endless slow jogging. You can also fight while horsepack. And there is somthing special too but I wont spoil it.

Pegas Horse Ranch, available from Morrowind Summit, offers full featured
support for riding horses - and much more. It adds a ranch south of Vos
where you can purchase horses and the equipment to ride them. There are
several horse breeds which have different advantages and disadvantages.
Each horse has unique stats: Strength, endurance, intelligence and
speed. Some horses are capable of carrying a fully equipped knight over
a long distance, others are sleek and run fast but won't carry a heavily
armored warrior for very long. You will need to find the right horse for
your character.

To improve the stats of your horses, you can hire one of various
trainers. Not every trainer is equally skilled, you will need to figure
out which trainer is most qualified to work for you. Hiring a trainer is
expensive, but can improve your horses significantly.

The horses for purchase on the ranch are of common breed. If you have
the cash and time, you can start breeding your horses to cross-breeds,
which have superior stats. If you are lucky, you can breed cross-breeds
to the even better ultimate breeds, which will require a lot of patience
and luck to succeed - I havn't yet. I admit I obviously lack the basic
breeding knowledge, as at my very first attempt to breed two of my
horses some arrogant Nord laughed at me: "You are joking? I can tell the
difference between male and male."

The horses are very nicely done and fully animated. It's possible to
fight from the back of your horse; I suppose it might be a nifty idea to
use something like spears or other long weapons. You can also cast
spells from horseback, though you should avoid those 10ft area spells on
nearby targets, else you hit your horse as well. Companions can either
mount the same horse as you, or if you have the cash available, then buy
a second horse for your companion. They will even aid you in battle from
the back of their horse.

Horses are probably not the fastest way to travel, a character with > 90
speed runs quicker. However, this only takes the cheap, common breeds
into account, as I havn't managed to breed a faster horse yet. It's a
good way to travel long distances without exhaustion, as your horse can
run for much longer than you can before getting tired. For a low-level
character horses are a very good and stylish way to travel, as even the
cheapest common breed will run faster than a young adventurer.
You can use fast-travel with a horse, they don't mind a trip using a
ship or the silt-strier. I didn't try to get a horse through a mage
guild-guide, I thought Edwinna might not be so pleased to find some
horse apples all over her prized dwemer artifacts. This might seriously
hamper my mages guild career, so I leave that test to someone else.

Overall the mod runs stable. I had a couple of crashes when changing
cells, but I get these without this mod enabled as well, so it's hard to
tell if it's a problem with the mod or Morrowind. The riding animation
for companions looks a bit funny, but I do understand it's difficult to
do all these things using the scripting language, which probably wasn't
designed with horse support in mind. There is one dialog bug when
breeding two horses, which costs 2000 gold but the dialog checks for
10000 gold in your inventory (though only reduces 2000 gold then, so you
can workaround this by just having > 100000 available). Other than this
I found no serious problems.

To sum it up, this is an excellent mod. You can now travel with style,
and Daggerfall fans who missed horse riding can rejoice!

— I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it." Edmund Burke

Originally Posted by DeepO
The reason I havenīt mentioned any mod directly affecting economy is that I donīt know which Iīd recommend since Iīm not aware of any which is hassle-free, doesnīt make the game way too harsh or isnīt bundled with other changes I donīt like .

It doesn't require anything complex, just something that increases the amount of gold kept by shopkeepers. It's annoying that you have to sell valuable artifacts for much less than they're worth because no one seems to have enough money.

Originally Posted by JDR13
It doesn't require anything complex, just something that increases the amount of gold kept by shopkeepers. It's annoying that you have to sell valuable artifacts for much less than they're worth because no one seems to have enough money.

Ah, I misunderstood then. The mods I had in mind rebalance the economy in the way to make the game harder - significantly lower item prices, make merchants "better businessmen", raise training costs, etc.

There is Morrowind Riches mod that seems to be doing exactly what you have in mind.

— I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it." Edmund Burke

I am coming back to this thread with a question : has anyone played a character based on spears ? I was discussing this earlier with a friend and he says they are simply awesome just for their long range.

Originally Posted by bloodlover
I am coming back to this thread with a question : has anyone played a character based on spears ? I was discussing this earlier with a friend and he says they are simply awesome just for their long range.

I used swords and spears when I played. My favorite weapon was an Ebony Spear that I had found and enchanted with 'Drain Health', so everytime I struck an enemy I also gained hit points. I was pretty much invincible with that thing.

You don't need to specialize in one weapon type though. Morrowind is long enough that you'll probably max out 3 or 4 weapon skills by the time you're finished.

Also, don't choose any of the weapon skills as one of your Primary skills. They increase much too quickly imo.

Originally Posted by Motoki
For Morrowind I looked into Morrowind 2011 but found out there was a whole load of drama about that. Drama in the Morrowind modding community? *gasp* Who knew?

Anyway, when I managed to finally track down the file and the install instructions it was complicated. I'm tired of a complicated. That is what makes me not want to re-play Morrowind and Oblivion but at the same time I just can't even entertain the thought of playing them vanilla.

You might try this instead:

For graphics:Morrowind Graphics Overhaul is drama-free and judging by the readme easy to install as well.
Personally I wouldnīt recommend installing patch 1.3, because it introduces Atmospheric Sound Effects which I found to be overkill and not quite fitting.
Previous versions use Piratelordīs Expanded Sounds which are a lot better imo.
At any rate, donīt install the included voice-addons since these are likely incompatible with one mod Iīm going to recommend later (GDR).
Since I havenīt tried it myself I canīt vouch for this setup 100%, but if you want to upgrade Morrowindīs visuals and end up with reasonably consistent look, this package is by far the fastest way to go and is customizable when it comes to some controversial stuff (trees, animated grass).

Additionally/"optionally", few mods it doesnīt include which I think are better than the ones included are Plangkyeīs Hi-Res Telvanni Textures and Green Marble Mournhold which are imo the best for the respective areas.
Another not-included set of textures is Connaryīs stuff, which is likely a permission issue because some of these rule. The textures are no longer available on the usual sites, but thereīs an all inclusive package someone uploaded on Megaupload. The link is here:

Spoiler

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=bawxctlr
I tested the package, no viruses inside . Though there may be some pop ups courtesy of Megaupload, so use at own risk I guess. (Iīm using Adblock and NoScript and never had any problem with this host.)

When it comes to the other stuff, somehow I ended up putting a small list in one of the Witcher threads (which is also a variation of the list I posted in this very thread, haha), so hereīs more-or-less a repost:

I like Wakim's Game Improvements - Modular - leaves the fundamentals of the system intact, but brings better balance of effects, improves enemy spellcasters a bit or makes attribute/skill requirements for joining and especially for advancement in the guilds harsher (minor C&C here!).
As an alternative, thereīs newer and more comprehensive BTBīs Game Imrpovements, but these are imo too restrictive to the extent I suspect its author hasnīt played the game much.

There are also LGNPC mods which diversify NPCsī dialogues and add some quests. For the main quest dialogues, thereīs Less Generic Nerevarine.

Speaking of quests, mage-y characters can benefit from Rise of House Telvanni and Uvirithīs Legacy. The first one adds quite extensive quest chain available once you get to the top of the Telvanni faction, the second one adds shitload of content related to the Telvanni stronghold.
I donīt know about any comparable quests for the other houses.

Greater Dwemer Ruins turns the end of the main quest into quite massive and sometimes rather evil dungeon crawl, making the ending more memorable and a lot more difficult, but without really distorting the original storyline.

Canīt say much about basic gameplay/rule changers since I havenīt used much, only the already mentioned Wakimīs Improvements and also Linoraīs Leveling Mod set on hard to deal with the skill -> attribute mechanics. Unfortunately thereīs nothing in the vein of Oblivion Xp.

After installing these, re-run BOSS to sort the load order and the game should be ready to go. I donīt think that Wrye Mash is needed in this case.

That's a nice list there but honestly once I start going down that rabbit hole of 'Maybe I should get this mod, and ooh this one looks good…I wonder if that one is better than the one I have…Hey that one does something different' etc it just goes further and further down until I end up spending more time searching for, gathering and fussing with files.

I'm using the Morrowind Graphics Overhaul (v1.3) and I love it. That said I wouldn't call the install "drama-free" by any stretch. Assuming a fresh GOTY install its a good solid 1.5 hours soup to nuts with 25+ steps. After 20 hours I've crashed 3-4 times and crash on exit occasionally. My world map is pretty messed up - the graphic blob of an island no longer lines up with the markers. Gameplay wise though, the effects are well worth it. I have a short shader list in place - basically godrays, HDR and water related effects. Combined with the crisp textures its a great experience.